Federal “Good Neighbor Plan” for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards; Response to Judicial Stay

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Parts 52 and 97</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0668; FRL-8670.4-03-OAR]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2060-AW30</RIN> <SUBJECT>Federal “Good Neighbor Plan” for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards; Response to Judicial Stay</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking interim final action to stay, for emissions sources in California, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin, the effectiveness of the requirements established to address the obligations of these and other states to mitigate interstate air pollution with respect to the 2015 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone (the Good Neighbor Plan). The EPA is also revising certain other regulations to ensure the continued implementation of previously established requirements to mitigate interstate air pollution with respect to other ozone NAAQS while the effectiveness of the Good Neighbor Plan's requirements is stayed. The stay and the associated revisions to other regulations are being issued in response to a judicial order staying enforcement of the Good Neighbor Plan as to the stay applicants pending judicial review. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This interim final rule is effective November 6, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0668. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> David Lifland, Clean Air and Power Division, Office of Atmospheric Protection, Office of Air and Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mail Code 6204A, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: (202) 343-9151; email address: <E T="03">lifland.david@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Potentially Affected Entities</HD> This action revises on an interim basis the Good Neighbor Plan (the Plan), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> which includes regulations addressing emissions from electricity generating units (EGUs) and non-EGU industrial sources. This action also revises other allowance trading program regulations that apply to EGUs but not to non-EGU sources. The affected sources are generally in the following industry groups: <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Federal “Good Neighbor Plan” for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards, 88 FR 36654 (June 5, 2023). </FTNT> <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,tp0,i1" CDEF="s200,34"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Industry group</CHED> <CHED H="1"> North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code </CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Fossil Fuel Electric Power Generation</ENT> <ENT>221112</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Pipeline Transportation of Natural Gas</ENT> <ENT>4862</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Cement and Concrete Product Manufacturing</ENT> <ENT>3273</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Iron and Steel Mills and Ferroalloy Manufacturing</ENT> <ENT>3311</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Glass and Glass Product Manufacturing</ENT> <ENT>3272</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Basic Chemical Manufacturing</ENT> <ENT>3251</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing</ENT> <ENT>3241</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Pulp, Paper, and Paperboard Mills</ENT> <ENT>3221</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Metal Ore Mining</ENT> <ENT>2122</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Solid Waste Combustors and Incinerators</ENT> <ENT>562213</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> As promulgated, the Plan applied to emissions sources in 23 states. The effectiveness of the Plan's requirements for sources in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia was stayed in previous actions. This action applies to sources in the remaining states covered by the Plan as promulgated: California, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The information provided in this section on potentially affected entities is not intended to be exhaustive. If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Statutory Authority</HD> Statutory authority to issue the amendments finalized in this action is provided by the same Clean Air Act (CAA) provisions that provided authority to issue the regulations being amended: CAA section 110(a) and (c), 42 U.S.C. 7410(a) and (c) (state implementation plan (SIP) and federal implementation plan (FIP) requirements, including requirements for mitigation of interstate air pollution), and CAA section 301, 42 U.S.C. 7601 (general rulemaking authority). Statutory authority for the rulemaking procedures followed in this action is provided by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 553. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Response to Stay Order</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Background and Summary</HD> CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I), also known as the “good neighbor” provision, requires each state's SIP to include provisions sufficient to “prohibit[ ], consistent with the provisions of this subchapter, any source or other type of emissions activity within the State from emitting any air pollutant in amounts which will—(I) contribute significantly to nonattainment in, or interfere with maintenance by, any other State with respect to any [NAAQS].” The EPA often refers to the emissions reduction requirements under this provision as “good neighbor obligations” and submissions addressing these requirements as “good neighbor SIPs.” CAA section 110(c)(1) requires the EPA Administrator to promulgate a FIP at any time within 2 years after the Administrator: (i) finds that a state has failed to make a required SIP submission; (ii) finds a SIP submission to be incomplete pursuant to CAA section 110(k)(1)(C); or (iii) disapproves a SIP submission. This obligation applies unless the state corrects the deficiency through a SIP revision that the Administrator approves before the FIP is promulgated. In March 2023, in accordance with CAA sections 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) and 110(c)(1), the EPA promulgated the Good Neighbor Plan, a rule determining the good neighbor obligations of 23 states with respect to the 2015 ozone NAAQS and establishing FIP requirements for emissions sources in the states to address the states' obligations by reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO <E T="52">X</E> ), an ozone precursor. Following the Plan's promulgation, in response to judicial orders partially staying a separate EPA action as to several states, the EPA issued two sets of interim amendments (referred to here as the First and Second Interim Final Rules) staying the Plan's effectiveness for emissions sources in those states pending further EPA rulemaking. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> As modified by the First and Second Interim Final Rules, the Plan applied to EGUs within the borders of Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin and to non-EGU sources within the borders of nine of the same ten states (all except Wisconsin) as well as California. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> For EGUs, the Plan as promulgated requires affected sources to participate in the CSAPR NO <E T="52">X</E> Ozone Season “Group 3” Trading Program as amended by the Plan starting with the 2023 ozone season (the period from May 1 through September 30 of each year). For non-EGU sources, the Plan as promulgated establishes source-specific compliance requirements that generally take effect starting with the 2026 ozone season. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Federal “Good Neighbor Plan” for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards; Response to Judicial Stays of SIP Disapproval Action for Certain States, 88 FR 49295 (July 31, 2023); Federal “Good Neighbor Plan” for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards; Response to Additional Judicial Stays of SIP Disapproval Action for Certain States, 88 FR 67102 (September 29, 2023). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  The Plan's emissions reduction requirements apply to all emissions sources meeting the Plan's applicability criteria within the borders of each covered state, including sources in Indian country within the borders of the state. <E T="03">See</E> 88 FR 36690. </FTNT> The Plan's compliance requirements for EGUs were coordinated with similar trading program-based compliance requirements established under two earlier EPA rules. Before the Plan was promulgated, EGUs in a set of states including Wisconsin were addressing these states' good neighbor obligations with respect to the 2008 ozone NAAQS by participating in the CSAPR NO <E T="52">X</E> Ozone Season “Group 2” Trading Program established under the CSAPR Update, <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> and EGUs in a set of states including Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were addressing th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 131k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━